We’re Dreaming of a Wall Street Christmas
• Goldman Sachs is about to set a Christmas-bonus record by lavishing its employees with $16.5 billion after posting a 93 percent jump in quarterly earnings. Top traders and investment machers will be taking home up to $50 million (per Times) or even $100 million (per Post) each. Well, someone has to buy apartments in that William Beaver nonsense. [NYP]
• It wasn’t just driving, you know. A settlement agreement between Alan Hevesi and the AG’s office discloses that the state worker who chauffeured Mrs. Comptroller also shopped for her and “helped her rehabilitation from knee surgery” (code for “foot massage”?). [NYT]
• A man stole a delivery truck, tooled around Manhattan sideswiping taxicabs, and finally crashed into the lobby of an Upper East Side building. John Doe was DOA. Some crime just really, really, really doesn’t pay. [amNY]
• The News gets results! The paper has tut-tutted City College into stripping the name of Assata Shakur, a militant and a convicted cop killer, from a student center. Of course, it also accidentally re-triggered discussion of whether Shakur was framed. [NYDN]
• The Transportation Department publishes, and Gothamist annotates, a fascinating schematic of which subway lines are taxed to capacity now and which will be by 2030. Alarmingly, in the latter drawing, the Second Avenue line is still not on the subway map. [Gothamist]
the morning line
In Which Everyone Has Second Thoughts
• The jury is hopelessly deadlocked in the much-covered case of the Long Island samurai-sword murder. The defense’s version — that the victim’s wife, not the accused stepson, wielded the sword — has apparently raised enough reasonable doubt. [Newsday]
• The city’s phasing out five low-performing high schools, two in Manhattan and three in Brooklyn. Alumni, shed a tear for dear old Lafayette, Samuel Tilden, South Shore, Urban Peace Academy, and High School for the Physical City (um, huh?). [NYP]
• In ever odder education news, City College has named a student center after Assata Shakur — an erstwhile Black Liberation Army militant and convicted cop killer currently residing in Cuba. Some people are less than thrilled. [NYDN]
• Mayor Bloomberg is expected to make a “major speech” on sustainability today, which is a big deal in certain wonkish circles. Bloomie will be outlining the city’s land-use and traffic goals through the year 2030, when we’ll probably all be under water anyway. [Streetsblog]
• And remember how Taco Bell said green onions were the source of E. coli and very publicly removed them from the menu? Yeah, well, it was the white onions, mislabeled at the lab. And wait, there’s more — the strain of the bacteria found on those was not even the one that caused the local outbreak. Bon appetit. [NYT]